Oil Drilling -What's wrong with this picture ??

[garyT]

In Colorado:
A Chinese rotary rig is already operating for an American company while an Italian rotary rig has just arrived to drill a gas well in the same area, near the Rulison Project southeast of Parachute Co. These rigs are owned and operated by an all foreign crews. No US workers or equipment.

Article HERE
It appears the American Oil Companies stopped building and upgrading rotary drilling rigs some time ago allowing foreign companies to take the lead.
Thousands of Americans out of work yet we are supporting foreign workers.
USA cannot provide resources to drill, refineries cannot keep pace and no new ones coming on line,
fuel prices are exorbitant. Yet profits are at an all time high.
Sad.
garyT

 

[pitzel]

One of the plans for the Canadian oil sands in Northern Alberta is to build a 10,000+ foot runway that could support nonstop 777 or 747 flights to the Far East, to import workers.

There are some extremely serious concerns that the oil sands is running very close to depleting the Canadian labour supply in terms of trades, leading to absolutely massive overruns and tales of welders making $250k+/year, wages that most highly educated individuals can only dream of.

At least here in Canada, I think a big part of the problem has been completely ineffective human resource management by the industry as a whole. For years, tradespeople were treated as disposible labour, thrown off the jobsite with their last paycheque in hand the moment the job was done, shuffled back to the union hall to wait another few weeks for another set of jobs. Abrasive foremen, so often common, and inadequate and often 'redneckish' management training for such foremen is yet another issue.

The cyclical nature of trades employment has led few to desire to go into trades, and thus we arrive at the current shortage.

Food and decent quality accomodations are another issue for the industry. Its no fun working 18-hour days in the middle of nowhere, only to be forced, by necessity, to eat fast food or small town dining. I imagine some 'good' employers bring in good quality catering for their workers, but the majority don't.

 

[Steve S]

Cheap labor.